A friend and I were discussing the fact that some acts have pulled out of MichFest this year because of the Womyn-Born-Womyn, or Trans* exclusionary policies. This made me recall my first encounter with MichFest YEARS ago and I thought it might make an OK blog post.
Well this was years and years ago so it was before either of my assaults and therefore before my PTSD and anxiety issues. I was also all doe eyed and all fired up about feminism and woman power because I had gone full time and the veil of privileged had been lifted from my eyes and I was all, "Whoa! Why didn't I notice this before!?"
Anyway I had NO CLUE that this sort of anti-trans sentiment even existed in the community at the time. I just figured lesbians, and feminists, and trans women were one big happy family. Largely I suppose because I did and do identify myself as all three. And I hear about this big music festival up in Michigan in passing from a friend on line. Well I was all about music and road trips at the time, so I go to the website to see about getting some tickets.
While I am there I see their WBW thing and I am just perplexed. So I make the mistake of signing up to their forums so I can ask about it.
BIG MISTAKE
I make a post stating that I am a trans woman and I am confused about the WBW thing and whether or not I can buy tickets. I get a few replies that were basically, "Oh just come anyway, as long as you don't make a big deal about being trans you wont get kicked out." This left me even MORE confused. The next reply I got was someone who tried very calmly to explain that trans women weren't allowed be cause WBW spaces are for women who have known they were women their whole lives.
This is where I made my next mistake. Still unwilling or maybe unable to believe that such a rift could exist between two communities that I felt a part of, I came to the conclusion that they meant that drag queens, cross-dressers, gender fluid, and other NB people were not welcome, but that Transsexual women, who fully identify as female, were since gender is, at least in the LBGT community, accepted to be something you are born with. I said as much in a reply and asked for conformation.
THEY CAME, from the four corners of those forums they came to my little thread to tell me JUST how wrong they thought I was. It was my crash course introduction to the level of vitriol that TERFs can spew out. I was caught COMPLETELY off guard. For weeks and weeks this went on and they much have gotten my email off of the info I used to sign up to their forums or something because it spilled over to there. (had to ditch that email account)
Just hateful, angry, message after message. Death threats, people wishing for me to be raped, people "explaining" how my very existence equates assault, you name it. I was so indignant about this coming out of, for me, nowhere that when I discovered there was a protest associated with this I almost went and joined. In the end Michfest was too far away for me to drive to and not even get to see and bands.
And that is how MichFest taught me about TERFs
As for what I should have said... I sort of wish I had gone to that protest. It wouldn't have been as FUN as a music festival, but it would have been more important maybe. It is important to speak up when you see something wrong. Who knows maybe without Camp Trans the issue wouldn't be as visible today and those acts wouldn't have backed out. You can't live your life focusing on people who do things to tear you down, but you also can't just sit around and do nothing at all about it.
